Renowned editor and anthologist Ellen Datlow will be editing an unthemed, all original anthology of terror and supernatural fiction for CZP, Fearful Symmetries, scheduled to be published in Spring 2014. (The project was funded through Kickstarter by your generous donations!)

Ellen says: "This is a non-theme, all original anthology of about 125,000 words of terror and supernatural horror. I’m looking for all kinds of horror, but if you’re going to use a well-worn trope, try to do something fresh with it. If you’ve read any volumes of The Best Horror of the Year, you’ll know that my taste is pretty eclectic, that I like variety, and that while I don’t mind violence, I don’t think it should be the point of a story. I don’t want vignettes but fully formed stories that are about something. I want to be creeped out."

Payment is 7 cents/word. Up to 10,000 words, BUT Ellen would prefer stories up to 7500 words. No reprints.

A large percentage of the stories have already been solicited, but we have a small window for open submissions, from May 1 - May 31, 2013. Please send your best work.

Kit Reed has two new books this season: Son of Destruction, her spontaneous human combustion novel, and a "best of" collection from the Wesleyan University Press: The Story Until Now-- A Great Big Book of Stories, 35 short stories ranging from her first published short story to six new and previously uncollected stories from the 2000. Her collection, What Wolves Know, was a 2011 Shirley Jackson Award nominee

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Daniel A. Rabuzzi is the author of The Longing For Yount series: The Choir Boats and The Indigo Pheasant. His short fiction and poetry have appeared in Sybil's Garage, Shimmer, ChiZine, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Abyss & Apex, Goblin Fruit, Mannequin Envy, Bull Spec, Kaleidotrope, and Scheherezade's Bequest.

Richard Bowes winner of two World Fantasy Awards, an International Horror Guild, and a Million Writer Award. Recent and forthcoming short story appearances include: F&SF, Icarus, Lightspeed and the anthologies, Ghost's: Recent Hauntings, Handsome Devil, Hauntings, Where Thy Dark Eye Glances, and Weird Detectives: Recent Investigations. His new novel Dust Devil on a Quiet Streetwill be published July 2n by Lethe Press which also just reissued his Lambda Award winning novel Minions of the Moon. Also out this year will be two short story collections: The Queen, the Cambion and Seven Others and If Angels Fight.

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Alaya Dawn Johnson is the author of the Spirit Binders series (Racing the Dark and The Burning City) and the Zephyr Hollis novels (Moonshine and Wicked City). The Summer Prince is her official YA debut, which Kirkus has called "luminous" in a starred review. She is currently working on her follow-up YA novel, set inan elite DC private school during a flu pandemic..Wednesday April 17th, 7pm atKGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs.)New York, NYwww.kgbfantasticfiction.orgSubscribe to our mailing list:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kgbfantasticfiction/Readings are freeForward to friends at your own discretion.

These are the Honorable Mentions that will appear in print at the back of The Best Horror of the Year volume five. Congratulations. I also have a (very) long list that I will eventually post online only.

Cecil Castellucci is the author of books and graphic novels for young adults including The Year of the Beasts and First Day on Earth. She lives in Los Angeles and is the YA editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. Tin Star, book one in her first Science Fiction novel is out this Fall. She is currently at work on book two in the series, A Stone in the Sky.

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Gordon Dahlquist is a New York-based playwright and novelist, author of The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, The Dark Volume, and The Chemickal Marriage. The Different Girl is his first book for younger readers. He is fast at work on another.

This is a non-theme, all original anthology of about 125,000 words of terror and supernatural horror. I’m looking for all kinds of horror, but if you’re going to use a well worn trope, try to do something fresh with it. If you’ve read any volumes of The Best Horror of the Year, you’ll know that my taste is pretty eclectic, that I like variety, and that while I don’t mind violence, I don’t think it should be the point of a story. I don’t want vignettes but fully formed stories that are about something. I want to be creeped out.

The pay rate is 7 cents a word up to 10,000 words, but as the anthology is only 125,000 words long, I would prefer stories up to 7500 words.

The open reading period will run from May 1-May 31 2013. Submissions instructions coming soon.

Hi all. The January Locus mentioned that I'm editing a fundraising anthology for Clarion West. The title is Telling Tales-there will be a subtitle, but we're not sure what it will be yet. It is going to be all reprints by former Clarion West students, with afterwords by one of the teachers who taught during their year. It will be published by Hydra House in time for the 30th anniversary of the annual workshop. (at which I'm teaching)

Telling Tales edited by Ellen Datlow

Table of Contents

The Parrot Man by Kathleen Ann Goonan Absalom’s Mother by Louise Marley Mulberry Boys by Margo Lanagan The Fate of Mice by Susan Palwick My She by Mary Rosenblum Bitter Dreams by Ian McHugh Leviathan Wept by Daniel Abraham Start the Clock by Ben Rosenbaum I Hold My Father’s Paws by David D. Levine Beluthahatchie by Andy Duncan Another Word For Map Is Faith by Christopher Rowe The Adventures of Captain Black Heart Wentworth: A Nautical Tailby Rachel Swirsky A Boy in Cathyland by David Marusek The Water Museum by Nisi Shawl The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Changeby Kij Johnson The Lineaments of Gratified Desire by Ysabeau Wilce

Brian Keene is the author of over thirty novels, most recently Entombed and An Occurrence In Crazy Bear Valley. He also writes comic books for DC and Marvel, and continues work on his ongoing comic book series The Last Zombie. Several of his novels and stories have been developed for film including Ghoul, Dark Hollow, The Ties That Bind, and Fast Zombies Suck.

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Nick Mamatas is the author of several novels, including The Damned Highway co-authored with Brian Keene, and several dozen short stories. He also co-edited the anthologies The Future is Japanese with Masumi Washington and Haunted Legends with Ellen Datlow. His noir novel, Love is The Law, will be released in 2013.Wednesday January 16, 7pm atKGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs.)New York, NY

TORONTO, Ontario (December 10, 2012) — Ellen Datlow has announced the beginning of a Kickstarter campaign to fund a new horror anthology. Titled Fearful Symmetries, it will be published by ChiZine Publications in early 2014.

Given the rapidly changing publishing market, Datlow decided to turn to Kickstarter as an experiment to see if it could fund the project. The campaign will go toward the editing, layout, and production of the book, as well as offering professional rates to the authors. Datlow selected ChiZine Publications based on the quality of their books and distribution.

“This project is close to my heart,” says Datlow, “which is why I’ve decided to appeal to the public through Kickstarter. And while I have a stable of writers whose work I love, I want to give a chance to new talent that I may not be aware of. I want them to write the stories they’ve always wanted to and perhaps couldn’t because there was no venue for them.”

Unlike a lot of her anthologies, Fearful Symmetries will not have a theme. Datlow intends to solicit work from well-known horror writers, as well as those selected during an open reading period, something Datlow does not do often. If the campaign is a success, Fearful Symmetries will be released as a trade paperback and eBook, and is expected to be 125,000 words long.

In the meantime, I've been dealing with other issues:my mom had a health scare last week but all is well.I've got a colonoscopy scheduled for tomorrow so have eaten only chicken broth all day plus drinking water and elderflower soda (which I make with syrup and seltzer). Whoopie!I've done the first round of editing the second story I've bought for Tor--"Rag and Bone" by Priya Sharma, which is scheduled to be published May 1st

Working with my webmaster to redesign my website and include a blog in/on it. Once that happens I'll probably leave livejournal and dreamwidth as LJ is full of spam and just pretty quiet these days. I don't have time to read it-I follow the people I want on google reader, twitter, and fb.

Mostly though, I'm reading: for the Best Horror of the Year #5;the Stoker Collection jury; and the Shirley Jackson Award.

Any librarian who has been asked for books just like The Hunger Games will appreciate how this collection of short stories will satiate readers hungry for tales of futuristic woe. As the title implies, these stories do not describe the (political, environmental, socioeconomic) disasters but instead describe events post-apocalypse, what life is like afterward. The variety of tales and writing styles is wide. Cecil Castellucci offers a story where cities have vanished and knowledge of science is lost, but society somehow still runs via strict rules about cross-breeding. Jeffrey Ford presents a coming-of-age tale where becoming an adult means getting your own firearm. Not that far-fetched, but when it is law that everyone must be armed, and when teachers joke around by aiming their handguns at students who misbehave in class, things can get dicey fast. Genevieve Valentine presents a tale where the media manipulates survivors for the government, staging wars, family reunions, and touching scenes of bravery and hope. The actors in these mini-movies best remain anonymous because terrible things could happen if the public finds out about them.

The sixteen other tales cover everything from lycanthropy and mutation to the lengths one would go to find lost family members. These are good, smart, well-written science fiction pieces. They throw readers into the tale, and they must figure out things from context as they read. Teens seeking a dystopian fix, as well fans of science fiction, will be well pleased by this book.—Geri Diorio.

For any lover of dystopian or post-apocalyptic literature, After is a must-read. The disasters in the collection are incredibly varied and creative. Despite the bleak premise, the stories do not all strike a gloomy tone; the authors capture many emotions, ranging from poignant to comical; from stirring to chilling. Even given the short length of each piece, the characters are all very easy to get attached to. Each story will leave readers craving more of the author’s work. 5Q, 4P.—Holly Storm, Teen Reviewer.

Thursday November 19:00 p.m. OUR MONSTERS, OUR SELVES-VAUGHAN WESTThe best monsters—ghosts, vampires, werewolves, zombies—all begin as human beings, as US. All have their roots in the ideas of lost/strayed/stolen humanity. Freud alludes to the factor of semblance in The Uncanny, and that idea, with the tensions inherent in duality/dichotomy—an otherness both projected, and found within—iscrucial. Think of works such as Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, and Dracula like a hall of mirrors, begetting their own reflections. Is our continued fascination with these monsters our way of grappling with our own demons? And which fantasy characters are most persuasive in convincing us that they are not really monsters; that they are, in reality, a reflection/distortion/creation of us?James Alan Gardner (M), Lena Coakley, Ellen Datlow, ChristopherGolden, Richard A. Kirk, Holly Phillips

Friday November 28:00 p.m. GRAND YORK BALLROOMAUTOGRAPH RECEPTIONMeet, talk, and get your books signed.(No backpacks or wheeled carriers allowed in the signing hall. Park them outside in designated areas. Please be considerate of other attendees. We reserve the right to limit the number of books signed for any one person.)

Saturday November 31:00 p.m. CALL YOURSELF AN EDITOR? YORK B & CHow have the position and role of editors changed over the last twenty years? How are they likely to change over the next ten? The panel will look at how editors are viewed by their employers, by authors, and by consumers. Good editing should be invisible to readers; are editors becoming increasingly invisible to publishingcompanies, except in their role of making acquisitions? How and why did this happen, if it did? A generation of authors has, to varying degrees, never undergone the traditional substantive/copy/line editing process. What effect has/will this have on the genre? And what of the generation of readers who’ve grown accustomed to works that have never seen a blue pencil? Does anyone care?Jack Dann (M), Ellen Datlow, Gordon Van Gelder, SharynNovember, Patrick Swenson, Ann VanderMeer.

I've already received more than one email or comment on a post asking if I'm reading novel manuscripts for Tor, if I can check in the Tor.com (or Tor) slush pile for someone's story/novel.

No I cannot. The reasons being:

1) I am consulting for TOR.COM --that is the website, which publishes short stories not novels. I am not buying novels. I did consult for Tor, acquiring and editing novels around 2000-2005.

2) I have not been hired to look at the Tor.com (or TOR) slush pile. There are slush readers for that. (and just fyi, I believe there are a couple of new ones, and so Tor's hoping to catch up soon).

3) I am soliciting short stories from specific writers. As I am only buying a handful of stories annually (at this point) I am not reading unsolicited submissions. If you are someone whose work I've bought in the past you can query me.

(you can see a furry tentacle like object moving in out and of the room -it's Bella's tail. She walked back and forth on my lap during some of the interview and although I tried to get her head high enough to be seen by the webcam, alas, only her tail made it into the show.

From Book Slut/ Teenage Horror September column by Colleen Mondorhttp://tinyurl.com/9o3asahOlder teens should also check out The Best Horror of the Year Volume Four, edited by Ellen Datlow. It includes a host of stories by the likes of Stephen King (although I think his story is one of the weakest), Margo Lanagan, Peter Straub, A.C. Wise (who tells us what happened to the "final girl" in a particularly frightful horror movie), and Simon Bestwick (consider this the antithesis to Ray Bradbury's "The Foghorn"). Datlow's anthologies continue to be standouts and are always a safe bet for frightful reads of epic proportions.

I'm going to be doing a live video chat with Mike Davis of Lovecraft e-zine this Sunday evening. In order to watch it live, all you have to do is to go to www.lovecraftzine.com -- the very top post, at 6pm EST, will have a Youtube video.

You click the play button on the Youtube video, and you'll be watching it live.

If you have questions for me, you can enter them in the comments on that page, and I Mike will pass them on to me. Easy peasy.